A poor memory (Jan 27 - Feb 8) Java, Singapore, NZL, Sydney

It was good to be traveling again after so many weeks in the office.  This trip I was able to combine four destinations into one trip; Java, Singapore, Christchurch & Sydney.  A good combination of developing and developed countries that give a good variety of culture and food.

The trip started off wrong however when I realized I forgot my passport while getting on the local bus.  A quick call to my support team and I was met at the train station with enough time to catch the train to the airport.  But it seems that my mind was not in gear as three days later after traveling 3hrs by car from Tuban to Surabaya I noticed while unpacking that I had forgotten my pants and shirts hanging in the closet at the previous hotel.  With a flight out the next morning, I tried to see if anyone could bring my clothes into the city.  A lot of the project team go into the "big city" for the weekend.  But I wasn't that concerned as I would get the clothes eventually and could survive with the clothes I did remember to pack.   With my mind free of worry I went to bed at 11pm that evening only to be awoken at 2 am by a call on my cell phone.  It seems a driver had been asked to take my clothes to me (a 3hrs drive) drop them off and then return to Tuban - a 6hrs drive in total.  I guess he felt he needed to personally deliver them, but at 2am I didn't want to meet him in the lobby and asked he give them to the front desk.  Unfortunately I never did get back to sleep.

My weekend started off catching a flight to Singapore (economy class - ugh!) and with a 10 hr layover in Singapore I took advantage of the time to visit a project there that was just wrapping up.  The  project manager met me at the airport and showed me around his project.  Which was very nice of him seeing as it was the weekend.  It was in the port of Singapore and I always enjoy visiting ports.  To enter the port you have to register in advance and get clearance.  It was a little odd however, that after getting the necessary paperwork they didn't even look at it at the security gate.  In fact the photo was so bad it could have been anyone.

At the project site I met this one fellow from Germany and was reminded that the expats you meet are often rather odd.  He had at most 3 teeth, all at unusual angles, with earrings and tattoos he reminded me of a short, fat pirate.  In Singapore he gets respect and is the boss of many, in Germany he would not be in charge of the toilets. (perhaps I am a little harsh, as I only spent 10 min with him)

Bollywood style birthday party

I was back in India last week leading a workshop with 50 people from mainly India, but also Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Vietnam.  The event went well and everyone behaved themselves.  I had experienced events where the Indian participants are quite loud and don't function too well as a group.

On one day we went for a tour of the nearby project and the workers camp.  There are 1600 workers living in the camp, but when we toured it, it was practically vacant as they were all on the job site.  These guys typically earn about 3 USD per day and work 10-11hr days 6 days a week.  In the past the accommodations provided by the construction companies are pretty bad, so this was the first time the owner stepped in to construct a better camp for the workers.  It was my first visit to see where they live and I discretely took some photos.

On the second day they held a cultural evening which consisted of a rock band playing some pop and Hindi songs.  The crowd preferred the Hindi songs, and after some encouragement the band had all the men up dancing and then the ladies would dance the next set of songs.  Never together.  The young men really got into the music and were dancing quite closely with one another....  Who am I to judge.

Needless to say it was a looooong evening for me and I kept looking for an escape.  But at the end of the evening they celebrated my birthday with a cake and called me up on stage, where they popped the champagne and sprayed me.  I have never had my hand shaken so much in one night.

In the photo above you see the conference room in the hotel.  At a glance one would think everything is fine, however the devil is in the details.  What you don't realize until sitting there is that the door to washroom is right next to the presenter (the silver one).  So if you needed to use it, there was no being discrete about it.  A room for the hotel staff was also right nearby and the staff elevator alarm would ring continuously if someone forgot to close the door to it.  No amount of complaining would rectify the situation.

At the end of the workshop, I was loaded up with mementoes of this great event.  A coffee mug with my photo on it, a trophy, and a plaque with the groups photo on it.  I have no idea what I am to do with this stuff, but felt it would be rude to leave in the hotel room. 

A drive up the coast north of Christ Church - November 9

It has been over two years since I was last here and the town doesn’t look like it has changed that much.  There are only more vacant spots where buildings have been torn down, but it still has a lot of construction to go before you notice a change.

On Sunday I wake at 2am and after tossing and turning for a while, I give up and leave at 4:45am and drive north up the coast.  The drive turns out to be very nice and the scenery very beautiful (much nicer than the drive south to Omarau.  I stop at Kaikoura and have a nice breakfast at 7am and two flat white coffees (yum). 

The beach at Kaikoura

On the drive back inland

Beach near Christchurch

Sail car? near Christchurch

On one of the beaches they had a Tsunami warning sign which was interesting. 

On my last day, I flew up to Auckland and got the chance to tour around a bit before my flight out in the evening.  Auckland the largest city in NZL also has half the population of the country.

 View of Rangitoto volcano in the distance - just one of 53 in the area

 One tree hill - without a tree

And it seems that Rob Ford even made the news in NZL

Bad Art - a new low for hotels

Sydney November 6

This trip to Australia I flew with Emirates and the 13 hr flight from Dubai to Sydney was extremely long and tedious.  The plane is an A380 and has a very nice business class seat.  It even had a bar area at the back if you can believe it.  It was nice to stand for a bit there and they would serve you drinks and snacks. 

An anti-jet lag plan was needed, as I would be landing at 11pm and I needed to drive 1.5 hrs that evening, I had to arrive sober and awake just enough that I could go to sleep when I reached the hotel. So after the first leg of the trip to Dubai, I had to stay awake as long as possible. This turned out to be quite difficult and boring. I was so tired I could only watch movies and tv shows. Everyone around me was sleeping and they were not going to feed us until 2 hrs before landing. In the end it worked out okay and I was wide awake for the drive, but tired enough that I feel asleep quickly. But I did wake up after only 5hrs sleep which turned out to be perfect from my 6:30 am breakfast meeting.

The hotel I stay at in Wollongong is a little dumpy and they always put me in the same room. There is a painting on the wall of my room that is so bad it must be done by one owner’s (or they picked it up cheap at a garage sale). It is a good thing it is in the small outer room so I don’t have those eyes looking at me the whole time.

On my last evening in Sydney I am staying at an Airport hotel and as the wind is blowing very hard I go to watch the kite surfers that sail nearby. The windsurfers all sail in the area right next to the airport runways, but the kite surfers are not allowed in that area and have to sail a few kilometers further down the beach. Most likely due to the fear (unreasonable?) that they might get sucked into a jet engine if they jump too high. When I get there it looks quite busy, but after counting all the kites there are less than 20 sailers.

Afterwards I check out the windsurfers only to find they are packing up by the time I get there. From the age of the guys it seems that this is a dying sport (they are my age!). Not the cool sport for the kids I guess.

Holy men & coconuts

Raipur India

It is my first trip back to India in a number of months, but it is just a short one – 2 days.   This time I fly into Mumbai, arriving at 10 pm only to get up at 5 am to catch a 7 am flight to Raipur.  It turns out that a number of Indian colleagues are on the same flight and after landing we depart together to the project site. 

As usual there are a number of religious ceremonies that have to take place during our tour of the site.  The visiting dignitaries (that’s me) get to have a red dot painted on your forehead and then break open a coconut, while a holy man chants.  It is repeated four times during the tour.  They pass around the coconut pieces to eat shortly afterwards, which were very tasty.

I see a few things that are worth sharing.  On the roads you see a lot that is shocking but difficult to capture on the camera as they come and go so quickly.  In this photo I was fast enough to catch it as we passed these two fellows.  I wondered if a sudden gust of wind might sweep the passenger off the back of the motorcycle.

In the guest house, the usual array of switches was available (in three places) which always makes it difficult to find the right one.  You can imagine what they think of our poor selection of switches and the need to walk around so much.

This time I have added some construction photos, let me know if you like this type of stuff and I can include more in the future (or not).  The work ongoing in this photo takes places 24 hrs a day for the next 20 days, as the concrete is added the form is slowly raised in a continuous process, with the workers adding the steel and carting the fresh concrete around by wheel barrow.

In India the construction workers hired typically have no experience and are just general labourers.  Now after many projects we have learned that we (and not the contractor who hires them) have to train them in basic safety.  At this project they created a "safety park" with miniatures to show them safe practices.

Rats in the ceiling

Bangladesh

The trip to Bangladesh is a little more interesting for me.  It is only my second trip to Dhaka and the last time was over two years ago.  I fly via Singapore and the second leg is on Biman the national Bangladesh Airline.  It is definitely an experience.  The waiting area is filled with people returning home (and me).  Each person seems to be carrying a box with a remote controlled helicopter and several bags for carry on.  I have never seen so much carry on luggage before and doubt that it can possibly fit.  The passengers don’t seem to follow any of the instructions and before long a loud Indian gentlemen (?) is yelling at them and pushing them away.  I believe they were trying to board before their seat was called.  I begin to worry that there is no business class section as I am required to line up and board with all the others, and picture myself spending the next 4 hrs with boxes of helicopters on my lap.  However, my fears are unfounded and I am seated in a very small business class section.  But the service is lacking and the attendants don’t appear to want to serve me anything – including no alcohol which is not served on this national airline.  Later on during my visit the local CEO asks me how my flight with Biman was, with a smirk on his face.  “My God man, why did you fly with Biman!”  You were lucky to arrive when you did.  Normally the flights are delayed by hours.

I have to obtain a visa upon arrival, which usually involves long lines at the wrong counter and a delay that puts you at the back of the line at immigration.  But this time I am personally guided through the process (the local company had arranged this) and it is done with minimal delay.

My hotel room is one floor below the restaurant which is on the top floor and I have trouble getting to sleep as I hear the scurrying of little feet above my head all through the night.  I put in ear plugs to block out the sound and try not to think about a fat rat dropping on me through the ceiling tiles.  This sound disappears in the morning but then returns the next evening.  I don't know how the rats find their way up to the 10th floor in this modern hotel.

On Tuesday, I am picked up at 6:45am to drive to the plant which is 45km away and I am told that it takes about 2 hrs.  Yes two hours to travel 45 km, that’s an average of 23km/hr.  Two years ago it took about 3.5hrs.  The route is incredible. Most of the way we are on dirt roads and driving down alleyways and through most of it there are shacks and houses on either side.  The traffic is terrible and the roads very narrow.  There are a lot of rickshaws and not that many motorbikes, which is interesting as it indicates that most people can’t afford them yet. (in India and Sri Lanka, they are all over the place).  The driver manages to get me to the site in 1.5hrs so it was good that we left early before traffic picked up.

If you look at Bangladesh on google earth it is misleading because the green bits that look like land is water - green water.  It looks more like a big swamp from the air flying in.  With small patches of dry land connected by roads and water all around, it is little wonder why so many die when it is hit by flooding.  Each person should be issued with a life jacket, because it is only a matter of time before the next flood comes

The CEO shows up at the plant at noon and informs me that we have to leave by 3pm because the demonstrations will be starting soon. And if we don’t leave it will take a lot longer to get back and could be dangerous.  It seems that the high court had just passed the death sentence verdict on one of the leaders of the 1971 war for crimes against humanity.  The opposition is upset about this verdict and was going to call a general strike and get demonstrations going.  I make it back to the hotel by 5pm and it seems that we got out before the roads were closed.  The next day the hotel informs me that the general strike is on and they don’t recommend guests leave the hotel except to go to the airport, which fortunately is where I am heading. 

My driver is kind enough in the morning to wake me with a call at 5:30am to inform me he has arrived at the hotel.  I have an 8:30 flight and the hotel is 10min from the airport and I was planning to get up at 6am.  I was less than polite to him on the phone for waking me, but after meeting him and discovering that he is a complete moron, any suggestions on how to improve would be lost on him.  It is sooo hard to find good servants these days.

The airport is slightly larger than the Saskatoon airport. Dhaka is a city of 16 million people, so I’m surprised it is not that busy.  Except for the entrance for people traveling to Saudi Arabia where the line is quite long.  The devoted’s journey to Mecca must keep the Saudi’s airlines quite busy.  The line is much shorter at Biman airways and once again I see that local’s are a little inexperienced in flying and reading English.  Signs and lines are ignored as they wander around a bit in a daze.   

My flight leaves on time and my opinion of Biman air improves.

Haircut in Surabaya

Surabaya Indonesia

On Friday I have a long day with flights from Wuhan to Hong Kong to Surabaya.  I land at 7 pm and only make it to the hotel at 10:30 pm after a long drive through the country side.  My two days on site are uneventful and not worth writing about.  On Sunday afternoon I am driven back to Surabaya and on the way, I see a truck load of children being transported  and try and get a picture but I’m not fast enough.  This medium size truck had 20 or more 6 to 8 yr olds standing in the back of his truck.  Must have been a school outing.

I stay at a Sheraton hotel next to a huge shopping mall and this gives me the opportunity to get my hair cut at the mall.  One has to be open minded to get your hair cut at these places.  Cleanliness is not a priority and personal space in the shop is tight.  Hair from the previous customer is evident on the scissors, comb and electric razors.  If a comb is dropped, it is not replaced or cleaned.  However, my hair is cut for 20% of the price in Switz. and of equal quality – they even wash my hair before and after cutting it.

In the evening, I eat at the hotel restaurant and it is full.  It looks like a wedding party as there is a big cake and the women are really dressed up.  Upon closer examination I don’t notice a groom and the “bride” looks quite young.  I find out that it is a B’day party for the girl who is turning 17.  I guess this is a big deal here for the rich kids.  It is quite over the top with the cake and the dress.